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Inspirational Reads

Time for a Christmas Rant!!!

December 7, 2009

I'm sure where you are, you also have radio stations that play Christmas music all day and all night. I'm fine with this. This is not the nature of this rant. I actually kind of like the Christmas music all day and all night, especially if the kids and I are out having one of those special moments together. You know the ones: where daddy is fighting through traffic and the kids are picking up new and creative swears to share with their friends. Ah, the holidays.

No, instead, my gripe rests with the lack of variety in Christmas songs. It's the same thing, time and again. Every 45 minutes, we start back with the same goddamned seven Christmas songs, three of which are three different versions of "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree". I'm about to burn an effigy of Brenda Lee; I don't care that she's 64 years old. Someone spread a rumor that Brenda Lee hates America. Maybe we can go all Dixie Chicks on her and burn every fucking copy of that song ever made.

I will say that, fortunately, we've gotten away from the "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" song that plagued the airwaves for a few years. If it makes a resurgence, then I'm definitely leaking to someone that Elmo and Patsy have links to al Qaeda.

And, yes, people, I know that "Carol of the Bells" is fucking awesome. I love it. You love it. I don't love twenty different fucking versions of it playing 24 hours a day. We all tend to love things a lot less when they are raping our ears over and over again. Take note, please. Mannheim Steamroller, I'm looking at you.

But, perhaps the most perfidious of all the "Christmas" songs comes from everyone's favorite Glitter star, Mariah Carey. Ugh. Can anyone possibly ruin a season of love and harmony like her? I mean, honestly. "All I Want for Christmas Is You" is ear-bleedingly bad. In case you're one of the very few people blessed enough not to have had this thing violate your ear canals, let me give you a brief summary of how it goes: fourteen stray cats are placed in a burlap bag; someone swings the bag against a wall, thus pissing off the mangy, flea-ridden felines; music ensues; someone chants "Christmas" over and over again in the back ground.

There's another one that she mangles, but I can't think of what it is. Maybe yet another version of "Santa Claus is Coming in my mouth to Town". I'm not sure. I feel an aneurysm threatening to burst right now just thinking about the first song. Please don't make me do the research on the second one.

But here's the thing: I don't mind Mariah Carey that much, when she's not ruining Christmas music. I'm not saying that I own all of her albums or anything (I might still have a tape copy of Vision of Love somewhere, don't judge). It's just that her holiday music that makes my stomach tie itself into knots and my testicles to recede into the safety of my body as if a solid punting is imminent. I would naturally assume that I'm just not hip or cool, but these fucking songs have been plaguing us since 1994, when I was a senior in high school, arguably at the pinnacle of my hipness and coolness. So, it can't even be that.

So there. While I love Christmas, and while I don't mind the Christmas music playing at all hours of the day, the monotony is what kills me. Plus, the screechy implications that "you" can satisfy what I need and want for Christmas (maybe if "you" came with, I dunno, a PS3 and maybe a 47-inch flat panel television, then we're getting close) just don't do it for me.

Fortunately, someone else has done my bitching for me in regards to Dan Fogelberg, everyone's favorite leather mug maker from the Renaissance Fair.

21 comments:

Cora said...

True. But you have to admit it's better than Madonna pouting her way through "Santa Baby" in her fucking annoying preschool voice. Gah! If there's one song that makes me want to rip my ears off and knock down grandmas and orphans as I run away screaming down the street, it's Madonna's stupid "Santa Baby."

the iNDefatigable mjenks said...

Excellently noted, Cora. I had forgotten about that skull-fuck of a Christmas song (thankfully). I haven't heard it for a while and had swept it from the Big List of Things Pissing Me Off At This Moment. I'll have to re-add it.

Ed Adams said...

I still say it ain't Christmas without Bing Crosby.

Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba

Wynn said...

I am so lucky that I don't hang around radios very much. There are some seriously bad crap out there.

Nikki said...

What?! You don't love that Christmas shoes song?

"Could you hurry, sir, Daddy says there's not much time. You see she's been sick for quite a while
And I know these shoes would make her smile.
And I want her to look beautiful if Mama meets Jesus tonight...."

If Jesus is only letting people in based on their shoes I'm telling my husband I need new ones.

Eric said...

My own personal repetitive Christmas song hell is Paul McCartney's 'Wonderful Christmas Time'. YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY???
IT KEEPS SINGING "SIMPLY HAVING A WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS TIME" OVER AND OVER AGAIN. And, the ftard Christmas station plays within ever hour block in random order.
You'd think PAUL COCKADOODY MCCARTNEY owned the radio station.
Well, all that and the cheesy square waveform Casio synth they play in it.

Eric said...

Sorry for the spelling errors in my hurriedly typed rant above, but that song just ticks me off every time I think of it.

@Nikki - Have you heard the Marilyn Manson cover of 'The Christmas Shoes'?

Wonderful said...

I totally agree with your rant. I have suffered through Pandora's crappy selection of holiday music all day, and I'm not a fan. It's either way too old, or way too annoying. I hate all the country versions of the Christmas songs too. They all suck.

Elliott said...

As many people over the years have done, I spent several holiday seasons working a second job in retail. Those same seven songs, including two versions of Feliz Navidad, are the bane of existence.

I thankfully found the 'Alternative Holiday' channel a few years back on XM. The Arrogant Worms 'Santa's Gonna Kick Your Ass', Duke Tumatoe's 'It's Christmas, Let's Have Sex', the Kinks' 'Father Christmas' and the like.

Definitely puts me in better spirits.

adrienzgirl said...

I am so with you on this. I love Christmas music, BUT, and there is a HUGE BUT, why can't we get some fucking variety. And by variety I do not mean fucking changing the originals. Is there no one that can sing a fucking proper version of The Little Drummer Boy? I hear the intro and get excited and then find out it's some mish mashed compilation of what the fuck? David Bowie, I love you, but knock it the fuck off!

There are new musician albums released EVERY year so why must we hear the same fucking 20 songs arranged by 7 artists?

Happy Hour...Somewhere said...

Sorry to hear about the shrinkage in the testicle department when you hear Mariah Carey but your description pretty much describes how I feel about all of her music. So glad I can turn on my iTunes and listen to hours of Christmas music with very little repeat. Oh, the advantage of working at home~!

BeckEye said...

*ahem*

I posted kick-ass Christmas music yesterday. No Mariah.

I have to admit that I tried to fight liking that "All I Want For Christmas Is You," but it's too damn catchy. But I can't watch the video without flying into a rage, watching that bitch preen and pose, only allowing the camera to catch her from her "good side."

Travis said...

Carol of the bells is fucking awesome.

I just wanted to repeat that, as I don't think it was given the proper amount of attention.

That's real.

My version is TSO and Mettalica.

Mala said...

Wait?! Mariah has a good side????

MJenks - right on brother!

mylittlebecky said...

pretty much nailed it with the mind numbing monotony of xmas music.

now i wanna listen to some.

Charm City Barfly said...

I refuse to listen to the radio from Thanksgiving all the way up to Christmas. But I will listen to the local rock station on Christmas Day because they play cool Xmas songs like "Holiday in Cambodia".

words...words...words... said...

I like Christmas music too, and I also bemoan the lack of variety.

But I actively dislike Mariah Carey (a lot), and I still absolutely love that "All I Want For Christmas Is You" song. I'd say it was because of the song's usage in Love Actually, but I heard the Mariah version first.

Amber Tidd Murphy said...

I loved All I Want for Christmas is You when I was a young teen and pining for a boy from summer camp. I would dance around in my bedroom and sing it.

I don't like the song or the boy anymore. Bah-humbug.

Nej said...

If a member of the rat pack is singing it, you usually can't go wrong.

Mannheim was always played in our house...on xmas morning. Not before and not after. Small doses is nice.

Ms. Carey's All I Want and ANY version of Santa Baby need to be melted, burned, crushed, frozen and smashed....promptly. :-)

Carol of the Bells (and Little Drummer Boy) are fucking awesome! :-)

Heather said...

This one of the reasons I don't listen to the radio anymore.

Sadly, I admit..I like "Grandma got run over by a reindeer" just not a hundred times a day! LOL

Apocalypse Cow said...

Holy ass baskets, you are so right. The local station that plays all christmas music all the time in my neck of the woods is overplaying the EXACT same songs. Fucking Mariah Carey. Fucking Manheim Steamroller.

Oh, and thank you for putting the Bruce Springsteen craptacular "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" in my head. Its going to lay there like a turd in the snow.